Let Us Now Praise: The 13 Biggest Movie Dicks

Their names may change, but their square jaws, coiffed hairdos, and obnoxious sports cars never do. As evidenced by this summer of _Bad Teacher_s and Horrible Bosses, the smug jerk remains a staple of any classic guy movie

**Why He's a Dick: **One of the stars of the diving team at a California university, he's convinced of his own incredible awesomeness. On a date at his frat house, he bad-mouths nerdy Jason Melon, the former towel boy turned teammate. Jason, of course, has a crush on Chas's date.

**Defining Line: **At the big final meet, he sees Jason and sneers, "Get this, towel boy: No matter what you think, you will always be a crude, obnoxious, nouveau riche little plebe."

**Why He's a Dick: **Kilborn plays the slick, sarcastic boyfriend of a perky single mother on whom shy, confused nice guy Luke Wilson has had a crush since high school. At a kid's birthday party, Wilson walks in on Mark feeling up a catering waitress in the bathroom.

**Defining Line: **"What are you going to do, tell on me? You know you can't, buddy. It's guy code. Okay? Guys don't tell on other guys. That's something chicks do. You're not a chick, are you? All right, good talk. I'll see you out there."

**His Downfall: **During the closing-credit sequence, Mark is roaring through the countryside in his red Porsche 911, singing along to Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again," shades up, cig in his mouth. He loses control of the wheel, swerves off a narrow bridge into a stream, and lands on top of the movie's true villain, the college dean, played by Jeremy Piven, who's fly-fishing. The Porsche explodes.

**Why He's a Dick: **When his girlfriend, Amanda, catches him cheating, she dates lovable loser and semi-stalker Eric Stoltz. Hardy then lures Stoltz to a party so his boys can make him pay for asking out Amanda, whom he refers to as "my property."

**Defining Line: **"Take him outside and kick the shit out of him."

**His Downfall: **Hardy gets slapped in front of his friends by Amanda and has his mansion, swarmed by the school's greasers and bangers. One of them lets Hardy know that "this party is about to become a historical fact."

**Why He's a Dick: **While on a double date with his fiancée, played by Drew Barrymore, he ogles a waitress's ass and brags to sentimental nice guy and wedding-band leader Adam Sandler (who has a not-so-secret crush on Barrymore) that he's banged other chicks as recently as last week.

**Defining Line: **After running into Sandler on the street, he says, "Hey, ass-wipe...you've gotta face the facts: She'd rather go to bed with a real man, not some poor singing orphan."

**His Downfall: **On a plane to Vegas, where he and Barrymore will be married (his idea), he loses her to Sandler in one of cinema's schmaltzier moments. The last we see of Glenn is his being violently shoved into a lavatory by one of Billy Idol's cronies.

**Why He's a Dick: **As the sweater-vest-wearing president of the Greek council and quarterback of the college football team, he torments a bunch of geeks just looking for peace, respect, and most important, a piece of ass.

**Defining Line: **"What are you looking at, nerd?"

**His Downfall: **Right after the nerds win the big interfraternity competition, Stan's chesty sorority girlfriend dumps him for one of the nerds. Cue that obnoxious chortle.

**Why He's a Dick: **Debbie, played by Tawny Kitaen, is about to marry clownish bus driver Rick (Tom Hanks), despite the objections of her wealthy parents. Her father enlists Cole, Kitaen's haughty, lantern-jawed ex-boyfriend, to break them up ASAP, and he tells Cole to take no prisoners.

**Defining Line: **Cole attempts to broker a deal with Hanks (a common tactic of the Movie Dick). His final offer: "I'm willing to trade my new Porsche for Debbie—an even swap."

**His Downfall: **Rick and his buddies ambush Cole, tie him up naked in bedsheets, and dangle him from a window. After falling crack-first into the sunroof of a car containing two scared tourists, he steals a fake tudo shirt and plaid trousers from a gift store and kidnaps Debbie. Rick chases him down and bitch-slaps him before a live studio audience at a movie theater.

**Why He's a Dick: **As the heir to the multimillion-dollar Soul Glo fortune, Darryl torments Eddie Murphy's character, an African prince roughing it as a hardworking fast-food clerk in Queens. He also announces to friends and family that he and his girlfriend are engaged—before he's even popped the question. The prince pines for the girlfriend.

**Defining Line: **Smirking at Murphy while at a Knicks game: "What kind of games do y'all play in Africa? Chase the monkey?"

**His Downfall: **After it is revealed that the prince is worth way more than Soul Glo, the girlfriend's father sics the family dog on Darryl. He runs outside, gets caught in a rainstorm, and his Jheri curl winds up limp and droopy.

**Why He's a Dick: **As chairman of the Greek council at Faber College, Greg plots with the dean to oust the Delta fraternity, home to his jokey, playboy nemesis, Otter (Tim Matheson). Possibly still in the closet, Greg doesn't believe in premarital intercourse, and he can't get it up when the campus hottie gives him a hand job. ("Is it supposed to be this soft?" she asks.)

**Defining Line: **Doesn't really have one. Most of Greg's arrogance is conveyed through his complete lack of humor and his glee as he watches a pledge, on all fours wearing white briefs, get paddled.

**His Downfall: **After being humiliated by the Deltas at the big homecoming parade, Greg looks for revenge. He confronts Otter, who holds up his hand and says, "Look at my thumb." Greg looks—and gets punched in the nose. Gee, he's dumb. His ultimate fate, according to the credits: Raped in prison, 1974.

**Why He's a Dick: **Aside from taking a game of touch football way too seriously, cheating on his fiancée, and plotting the ruin of nice guy Owen Wilson? He purposely shoots Vince Vaughn in the ass while quail hunting.

**Defining Line: **At Vaughn's wedding ceremony, Wilson makes a heartfelt play for Sack's fiancée, Claire, which finally pushes Sack to the summit of Asshole Mountain. He loses it in front of the entire congregation, screaming, "Claire, get your fucking ass on that altar right now!"

**His Downfall: **After being told off by Claire's father, Sack rushes to attack Wilson. But Vaughn steps in, cracks the creep in the teeth, and, as Sack himself put it after a nasty tackle during the touch-football game, "Big tree fall hard."

Just as John Wayne is the undisputed king of the Western, Billy Zabka will always be "that total prick" from Back to School and The Karate Kid. It is his sour-faced performance in the latter film, of course, that truly sets him apart from his cocky peers. His tan, athletic, blond good looks, paired with that smirky, smug facial expression—not to mention his unparalleled ability to spew lines like "You couldn't leave well enough alone, could you, you little twerp? Well, now you're gonna pay!"—made him the perfect choice to receive his very public comeuppance via a crane kick to the nose, courtesy of bullied wuss Ralph Macchio. Surprisingly, Zabka, now 40, has spent much of the past two decades playing good guys in a string of B movies you've never seen (Python 2, anyone?). He was even nominated for an Academy Award in 2003 for Most, an uplifting short film he cowrote and coproduced. Could it be that the ultimate bad guy has finally made good?

**Why He's a Dick: **One of the stars of the diving team at a California university, he's convinced of his own incredible awesomeness. On a date at his frat house, he bad-mouths nerdy Jason Melon, the former towel boy turned teammate. Jason, of course, has a crush on Chas's date.

**Defining Line: **At the big final meet, he sees Jason and sneers, "Get this, towel boy: No matter what you think, you will always be a crude, obnoxious, nouveau riche little plebe."

**Why He's a Dick: **Kilborn plays the slick, sarcastic boyfriend of a perky single mother on whom shy, confused nice guy Luke Wilson has had a crush since high school. At a kid's birthday party, Wilson walks in on Mark feeling up a catering waitress in the bathroom.

**Defining Line: **"What are you going to do, tell on me? You know you can't, buddy. It's guy code. Okay? Guys don't tell on other guys. That's something chicks do. You're not a chick, are you? All right, good talk. I'll see you out there."

**His Downfall: **During the closing-credit sequence, Mark is roaring through the countryside in his red Porsche 911, singing along to Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again," shades up, cig in his mouth. He loses control of the wheel, swerves off a narrow bridge into a stream, and lands on top of the movie's true villain, the college dean, played by Jeremy Piven, who's fly-fishing. The Porsche explodes.

**Why He's a Dick: **When his girlfriend, Amanda, catches him cheating, she dates lovable loser and semi-stalker Eric Stoltz. Hardy then lures Stoltz to a party so his boys can make him pay for asking out Amanda, whom he refers to as "my property."

**Defining Line: **"Take him outside and kick the shit out of him."

**His Downfall: **Hardy gets slapped in front of his friends by Amanda and has his mansion, swarmed by the school's greasers and bangers. One of them lets Hardy know that "this party is about to become a historical fact."

**Why He's a Dick: **While on a double date with his fiancée, played by Drew Barrymore, he ogles a waitress's ass and brags to sentimental nice guy and wedding-band leader Adam Sandler (who has a not-so-secret crush on Barrymore) that he's banged other chicks as recently as last week.

**Defining Line: **After running into Sandler on the street, he says, "Hey, ass-wipe...you've gotta face the facts: She'd rather go to bed with a real man, not some poor singing orphan."

**His Downfall: **On a plane to Vegas, where he and Barrymore will be married (his idea), he loses her to Sandler in one of cinema's schmaltzier moments. The last we see of Glenn is his being violently shoved into a lavatory by one of Billy Idol's cronies.

**Why He's a Dick: **As the sweater-vest-wearing president of the Greek council and quarterback of the college football team, he torments a bunch of geeks just looking for peace, respect, and most important, a piece of ass.

**Defining Line: **"What are you looking at, nerd?"

**His Downfall: **Right after the nerds win the big interfraternity competition, Stan's chesty sorority girlfriend dumps him for one of the nerds. Cue that obnoxious chortle.

**Why He's a Dick: **Debbie, played by Tawny Kitaen, is about to marry clownish bus driver Rick (Tom Hanks), despite the objections of her wealthy parents. Her father enlists Cole, Kitaen's haughty, lantern-jawed ex-boyfriend, to break them up ASAP, and he tells Cole to take no prisoners.

**Defining Line: **Cole attempts to broker a deal with Hanks (a common tactic of the Movie Dick). His final offer: "I'm willing to trade my new Porsche for Debbie—an even swap."

**His Downfall: **Rick and his buddies ambush Cole, tie him up naked in bedsheets, and dangle him from a window. After falling crack-first into the sunroof of a car containing two scared tourists, he steals a fake tudo shirt and plaid trousers from a gift store and kidnaps Debbie. Rick chases him down and bitch-slaps him before a live studio audience at a movie theater.

**Why He's a Dick: **As the heir to the multimillion-dollar Soul Glo fortune, Darryl torments Eddie Murphy's character, an African prince roughing it as a hardworking fast-food clerk in Queens. He also announces to friends and family that he and his girlfriend are engaged—before he's even popped the question. The prince pines for the girlfriend.

**Defining Line: **Smirking at Murphy while at a Knicks game: "What kind of games do y'all play in Africa? Chase the monkey?"

**His Downfall: **After it is revealed that the prince is worth way more than Soul Glo, the girlfriend's father sics the family dog on Darryl. He runs outside, gets caught in a rainstorm, and his Jheri curl winds up limp and droopy.

**Why He's a Dick: **As chairman of the Greek council at Faber College, Greg plots with the dean to oust the Delta fraternity, home to his jokey, playboy nemesis, Otter (Tim Matheson). Possibly still in the closet, Greg doesn't believe in premarital intercourse, and he can't get it up when the campus hottie gives him a hand job. ("Is it supposed to be this soft?" she asks.)

**Defining Line: **Doesn't really have one. Most of Greg's arrogance is conveyed through his complete lack of humor and his glee as he watches a pledge, on all fours wearing white briefs, get paddled.

**His Downfall: **After being humiliated by the Deltas at the big homecoming parade, Greg looks for revenge. He confronts Otter, who holds up his hand and says, "Look at my thumb." Greg looks—and gets punched in the nose. Gee, he's dumb. His ultimate fate, according to the credits: Raped in prison, 1974.

**Why He's a Dick: **Aside from taking a game of touch football way too seriously, cheating on his fiancée, and plotting the ruin of nice guy Owen Wilson? He purposely shoots Vince Vaughn in the ass while quail hunting.

**Defining Line: **At Vaughn's wedding ceremony, Wilson makes a heartfelt play for Sack's fiancée, Claire, which finally pushes Sack to the summit of Asshole Mountain. He loses it in front of the entire congregation, screaming, "Claire, get your fucking ass on that altar right now!"

**His Downfall: **After being told off by Claire's father, Sack rushes to attack Wilson. But Vaughn steps in, cracks the creep in the teeth, and, as Sack himself put it after a nasty tackle during the touch-football game, "Big tree fall hard."

Photo: Everett Collection

And the Number One Dick Is...

Billy Zabka as Johnny Lawrence

The Karate Kid, 1984

Just as John Wayne is the undisputed king of the Western, Billy Zabka will always be "that total prick" from Back to School and The Karate Kid. It is his sour-faced performance in the latter film, of course, that truly sets him apart from his cocky peers. His tan, athletic, blond good looks, paired with that smirky, smug facial expression—not to mention his unparalleled ability to spew lines like "You couldn't leave well enough alone, could you, you little twerp? Well, now you're gonna pay!"—made him the perfect choice to receive his very public comeuppance via a crane kick to the nose, courtesy of bullied wuss Ralph Macchio. Surprisingly, Zabka, now 40, has spent much of the past two decades playing good guys in a string of B movies you've never seen (Python 2, anyone?). He was even nominated for an Academy Award in 2003 for Most, an uplifting short film he cowrote and coproduced. Could it be that the ultimate bad guy has finally made good?